Laying Hands
by coffeeofacoffee
Summary: When he presses his hand into her side, there is a gaping wound there.


Title: Laying Hands

Author: Coffeeofacoffee

Rating: R

Spoilers: Supernatural, post-S7

Summary: When he presses his hand into her side, there is a gaping wound there.

Disclaimer: Not mine, no infringement intended, no profit made, no offence intended.

Author's Notes: Just a speculative vignette given that Meg fell into Crowley's hands at the end of the S7 finale, and what that might mean. It's rather dark given the givens, with talk of trauma and torture, as you might expect.

**Laying Hands**

_My fear is slipping away from me,_

_My lazy feeling filling my skin,_

_My doubts are slipping away from me,_

_My conscience keeps on saying move on, move on, move on,_

_Come on baby move on._

- **Mansun**, Slipping Away

When he presses his hand into her side, there is a gaping wound there. When he presses his hand **into **the wound - the wound that Crowley made, the wound that Crowley left open so he could he hurt her more, scrape her raw, play her nerves like a xylophone - she screams emphatic blood - eventhough she knows, knows that what Castiel is doing is the precise, exact opposite.

When his hand retreats, the wound is going, going, gone, but she is panting from the exertion, panting from the pain. Accepting a healing on a wound scooped as deep is a little like giving birth: it involves a degree of participation. And under the pain there is something else, she tries not to think about it. Tries not to give herself over to.

Giving herself over was Crowley's demand.

Indefensible that Castiel's hands are suddenly everywhere but then they'd have to be: everywhere is cut, everywhere is blood, "everywhere is raw burger", that's how she heard it - her eyes refused to open. The implication being: how the fuck is she alive? (Hey, Winchester, if you see God, ask Him.) If Crowley could have left her a wide open carcass but kept her alive, he would have. He recoursed to physically wounding only after he felt his hands-off internal damage wasn't visual enough to convey to him she that was actually hurting indeed.

And after that wasn't enough, it became all about breaking her. She's not entirely sure that all Crowley cut was flesh. For a long time the cuts went further, invading her mind: give in to me and it won't hurt so much, give in, give in, give in. Sanctimonious bastard - he's not even original - but she knew, despite his wordplay, even this was beside his intent: he just wanted her so gone that she'd crown him king herself. Not just king, _her _king. Put her on a leash.

No.

Put _herself _on his leash.

And he came pretty close.

In the end she wasn't scared of Crowley, she was scared of herself. And _**that**_was the point.

At first her bravery gave good face but not for long. At first she could make it sound like she was hurting more than it actually was but then, Crowley had an uncanny knack of knowing when she was faking. Like a musician, eerily attuned, he could hear a bum note in a stadium-sized choir. If her screams were even slightly off-key, he'd make it his business to bring her up to speed.

Even to her, her screams started to sound unholy, inhuman; demeaned versions of what screams should be. A perfect hell.

Impassive, he remained unmoved. He could always get her to sing louder, higher, longer - more. It was his little game of creation.

But back to present tense.

So, she's laying there - somewhere (in some safe room, she figures, her eyes still aren't working right) - what's left of her anyways, swaddled in his, in Castiel's, coat. Geez, she must have been bleeding out her eyeballs if he'd parted with that coat. But being there, having it wrapped around her feels like she's in a pupae: will she emerge a worm, or with wings?

As perfunctory as this intimate little checkup is, the undercurrent is personal. But then, pain always feels personal, like the right place to be; so this, this just feels wrong. Perhaps that's how it should be because she wants it. And what did she want before? For the pain to never stop so she didn't have to think. That's how bad it got: holding her head like an animal - a dumb, brute beast.

Her forward thoughts are backward, are circumferential to a mulberry bush. Being down for so long, she got adapted to the dark, it got adapted to her, they made a nice home together - and now that she's standing in blinding light she can't abide. Worse, everything Castiel thinks and everything he feels is communicated in that touch. And her gratitude hurts. She throws herself off the edge of that thought and tries to be good, tries not think at all - it's how she survived. She can't be sure she exists and this mouthful of heaven won't get stuck in her throat - and burn her all the way down.

Cas' touch shames her - it goes all the way deep - to places he shouldn't know.

When she awakes because somewhere along the line she passed out - a circumstance even Crowley took great care to avoid - Castiel is sitting in a chair across the room: a dream within a devil's nightmare.

Her throat is dry, her voice is raspy. She has to stop in the attempt to speak and start over. And then stop again because her last conditioned reflex was not to speak at all. Her eyes cast about the room looking for - improbably - a bottle of something crisp. Something she can taste on her lips.

She doesn't look at him directly, not yet.

"What did you do to me?"

Even for him, he sounds remarkably without affect - she must have been terrible to behold.

"I made you...better."

The bottle of bourbon he'd earlier pressed to her mouth is sitting open next to the lamp on the tiny table at the right of her bed. Impulsively, she takes a swig, getting her mind around his words. She finally meets his gaze: and it's loaded with something more than compassion.

A better way of saying: he made her feel, she thinks.

She draws his coat back over her bare shoulders. And maybe a dragon has wings.


End file.
